Fearful face scrambles increase early visual sensory processing in the absence of face information

Emotional facial expressions elicit distinct increased early electrophysiological responses. Many studies report even emotional modulations of very sensory processing at about 80 and 100 ms after stimulus presentation, indexed by the P1. These effects are often interpreted to index differential responses biologically relevant expressions. Since specific spatial frequencies differ between fearful neutral expressions, it has recently been suggested that these substantially driven such low-level visual differences. However, remains unclear whether similar P1 also observed in experiments which no recognizable face information is presented all. This study investigated this question explored any depend on colour attentional conditions. Participants (N = 20) performed a continuous perceptual task low or high difficultly were with task-irrelevant black/white images faces, rendered unrecognizable doing Fourier phase transformation. ERP findings revealed amplitudes for scrambles regardless experimental Taken together, our show absence expression. Specific frequency seems increase thus might have implications interpretation expression effects.